Ted Grant

Open Letter to B.S.F.I.

[Editor's Note: ‘B.S.F.I.’ means the
British section of the Fourth International. This open letter was written by Ted Grant after he was expelled from the section.]

British Trotskyism has reached an impasse on the
road which has been travelled by the official Trotskyist
organisation; there is no way forward towards the development of a
healthy revolutionary tendency rooted in the masses.

For three reasons, as a revolutionary tendency, the Fourth
International in Britain has collapsed:

1) Capitulation to Tito-Stalinism
internationally.

2) Policy and programme in Britain.

3) Lack of internal democracy.

Titoism

As a result of the development which followed World War Two an
unforeseen relationship of forces has developed on a world scale
between Stalinism, reformism and capitalism. The prognosis of the
Fourth International before the war that the problem of Stalinism
would be solved either during the war or immediately after has been
falsified by events.

Owing to the viability of state ownership, the frightful decay
and collapse of imperialism and capitalism, the revolutionary wave
following World War Two and the weakness of the revolutionary
internationalist tendency, Stalinism was enabled to take advantage
of all these factors and emerged with the U.S.S.R. as second world
power enormously strengthened throughout the globe. Stalinism has
become the mass tendency in Europe and Asia.

The collapse of capitalism in Eastern Europe enabled Stalinism
as a Bonapartist tendency to manipulate the workers and manoeuvre
between the classes - establishing deformed workers’ states
of a Bonapartist character with more or less mass support.
Stalinism in the present peculiar relationship of class forces,
basing itself in the last analysis on the proletariat - in the
sense of standing for the defence of the new economic form of
society - is Bonapartism of a new type manoeuvring between the
classes in order to establish a regime on the pattern of
Moscow.

In China and Yugoslavia, the Stalinist parties came to power on
the basis of overwhelming mass support and established regimes
relatively independent of the Moscow bureaucracy.

The fact that the revolution in China and Yugoslavia could he
developed in a distorted and debased character is due to the world
factors of:

(a) The crisis of world capitalism.

(b) The existence of a strong, deformed
workers’ state adjacent to these countries and powerfully
influencing the workers’ movement.

(c) The weakness of the Marxist current of the
Fourth International.

These factors have resulted in an unparalleled development,
which could not have been foreseen by any of the Marxist teachers:
the extension of Stalinism as a social phenomenon over half Europe,
over the Chinese sub-continent and with the possibility of
spreading over the whole of Asia.

This poses new theoretical problems to be worked out by the
Marxist movement. Under conditions of isolation and paucity of
forces, new historical factors could not but result in a
theoretical crisis of the movement, posing the problem of its very
existence and survival.

After a period of extreme vacillation and confusion throughout
the International, including all tendencies, three distinct
tendencies have emerged:

(a) A movement of despair and revisionism,
so-called state capitalism; organisational Menshevism of Haston and
the ideological disintegration of Morrow, Goldman, Craipeau,
etc.

(b) A tendency in the direction of neo-Stalinism
(the I.S. and the British Section).

(c) The Marxist current striving to carry on the
best traditions of Trotskyism.

Faced with formidable problems, the I.S. and the British
leadership have revealed themselves theoretically bankrupt. Without
any adequate theoretical explanation or conscientious analysis of
their past position, they have changed 180 degrees in true
Zinovievist fashion overnight, from one maintaining that Eastern
Europe and China were capitalist regimes to one where Yugoslavia -
since the break with Stalin - has mysteriously changed into a
healthy workers’ state.

In Britain, echoing the I.S. and without the least attempt at
theoretical understanding, the Healy leadership gives its crudest
application. Their method of reasoning follows along these lines:
(a) the Fourth International has predicted that Stalinism could not
make the revolution (b) Stalinism has made the revolution,
therefore... (c) it is not Stalinism! The second line of argument
of which both the I.S. and the Healy leadership are guilty, is that
there can only be one Stalin! Why? There can be more than one
Fascist dictator because they have a class basis in the capitalist
class, but Stalin, apparently, has no class basis.

Idealising and white-washing the Tito leadership because of
their break with Moscow, the British leadership has suppressed all
fundamental criticism of this tendency, and regards Yugoslavia in
this light of a ‘normal’ proletarian dictatorship: i.e.
a healthy workers’ state with this or that minor blemish of
no real importance. Taking as a platform the fact that, since the
break with Moscow, the Tito leadership has been compelled to borrow
many of the arguments from the arsenal of Marxism in their
criticism of the Moscow oligarchy, they do not see the conflict as
a reflection of the national struggle against the oppression and
the exploitation of the Moscow bureaucrats, and as one which was
reflected throughout Eastern Europe, and even within the boundaries
of the Soviet Union itself - the Ukraine, the Crimea Tartars, Volga
German Republic, etc. The only important difference being the
possibility of a successful resistance owing to the independent
character of the state apparatus in Yugoslavia.

Despite zigzags to the left, partly demagogic partly sincere,
the fundamental basis of the regime in Yugoslavia remains as
before... socialism in one country (and tiny Yugoslavia at that),
manoeuvring between world imperialism and the Russian bloc (only
thanks to which Yugoslavia can maintain itself). The regime remains
totalitarian - workers’ democracy does not exist.

The attempt to apologise for these ideas as a merely secondary
hangover from Stalinism is criminal and false. Some correct
criticisms of the Moscow regime do not transform Tito’s
set­up any more than some of the correct criticisms of the
Cominform change the nature of the regime in the countries where
the Cominform holds power.

The crisis within Stalinism makes the problem of building the
Fourth International more complex than before. The creation of new
Stalinist states - independent, or semi-independent from Stalin -
has added further confusion in the minds of the world working
class. The Fourth International, while taking advantage of the rift
within Stalinism in order to expose the real nature of this
Bonapartist disease, must not make concessions to neo-Stalinism.
While giving full support to the struggle for national
self-determination on the part of the Yugoslav nation against the
brutal attacks of Great Russian chauvinism, the Fourth
International must not thereby underwrite the political position of
Tito.

Whilst representing the national aspirations of the Yugoslav
masses, the Tito leadership - on a Lilliputian scale - use the
methods and fulfil a similar role as the Kremlin clique. It must
not be forgotten that the break did not come from the Yugoslav side
but was forced on the Yugoslav bureaucracy by the relentless and
uncompromising attempt at Moscow domination. Since the break there
has been no fundamental change in the principles and methods of the
Yugoslavs... How could it be otherwise? Socialism in one country
remains the axis around which the ideas of the Yugoslavs revolve.
To them the degeneration of the Russian bureaucracy is purely an
accidental phenomenon which they do not explain from the Marxist
point of view that conditions determine consciousness. Nor could it
be otherwise - on a smaller scale the conditions in Yugoslavia are
similar to those in the Soviet Union (backward country, small
minority proletariat, hostile environment, imperialism and
Stalinism). Like causes produce like results. In foreign and in
domestic policy the position of the Yugoslavs is not fundamentally
different to that of Stalinism in its early phases. In the long run
it will have the same consequences.

Instead of taking advantage of the conflict in order to
demonstrate the real nature of Stalinism and the vitally necessary
attributes which a healthy workers’ state, [they] have
converted themselves into a replica of the Friends of the Soviet
Union. The organisation has become the exculpatory tourist agency
for Yugoslavia.

From the inception of the Socialist Fellowship by Ellis Smith,
to the Korean Crisis, the organisation went through a period of
collaboration and accommodation to various elements inside the
Labour Party. These stretched from the social democratic left
reformists such as Ellis Smith and Brockway to Stalinist fellow
travellers, such as Tom Braddock and Jack Stanley. In the absence
of a genuine left wing the Healy leadership helped to construct a
shadow. In order to maintain this shadow they were forced to
accommodate themselves to it. Thus when the Socialist Fellowship
produced its policy, after the General Election, this leadership
took a leading role in drafting a programme which was false and
opportunistic.

At the same time, illusions were spread about the so-called
working class leaders, Ellis Smith, Mrs. Braddock, etc.

At the first serious crisis when the Korea dispute arose, the
inevitable splitting of this organisation took place, with Ellis
Smith and Company departing. With the departure of the important
left reformists, the group veered more openly in the direction of
accommodating itself to the Stalinist fellow traveller wing. They
remain in the rump of the Socialist Fellowship on a semi-Stalinist
position.

In fact the Trotskyists form the backbone in membership,
organisation and activity of the Socialist Fellowship.

The Trotskyists have expended their energy propagating an
opportunist policy instead of building a revolutionary nucleus
around themselves.

‘Socialist Outlook’

During the period of the development of the Socialist
Fellowship, the Socialist Outlook carried out its stated
task: “to reflect the confusion of the left wing.”
(1949 Conference document). The political role of the Socialist
Outlook was determined not by the anaemic editorials, but by
the leading articles of those M.P.s, etc., whose policies were
transparently one of sweetening the bitter pills of the right
wing.

At the same time, the editorials were coloured by the need not
to “offend” the Stalinist fellow travellers on the
Editorial Board.

The editorial produced a line of “criticism” which
is worthy of the notorious “Friends of the Soviet
Union”. “The leadership...would like it to be.”
“We are far from suggesting that the Russian Government at
all times and under all conditions supports progressive
movements.” “There is a distinct flavour of power
politics about Moscow’s attempt to secure peace in Korea in
return for an extra seat on the Security Council.” These are
examples of “serious Trotskyist criticism”! Amongst
such statements - which have a very distinct flavour - falls the
following: “Russian foreign policy is determined by what the
government of that country considers is in the interests of the
Soviet Union, but that as India proved does not, by any means,
always coincide with what is in the best interest of the
international working class. Or even, in the long run, the best
interest of the Soviet Union itself.”!

On this basis of political accommodation, the Healy tendency
boasts in Britain and internationally of its numerical and
organisational successes in the “building of the left
wing” within the Labour Party. Claims which were largely
without foundation in fact.

Even with their most strenuous efforts it remains an unimportant
and semi-fictitious organisation. Without their propping up it
would collapse immediately.

The Socialist Outlook is a “forum” with no
revolutionary tendency reflected in it. Neither is revolutionary
criticism allowed in the paper. For instance, S.L.’s [Sam
Levy] attack on the April editorial and M.L.’s [Marion Lunt]
attack on the position of Yugoslavia were not published, whilst
quantities of out-and-out reformist and Stalinist material was
published. In this respect they compare unfavourably even with the
centrist Socialist Leader. The important point must be borne
in mind that the dominating forces in the Socialist Outlook
are the Trotskyists.

The Socialist Outlook being in reality the paper of the
group, should be the organiser of the Group, instead it has become
a channel for Stalinist influence in the Labour Party.

The whole line of the paper and the policy of this grouping has
its crassest expression in the notorious Korea supplement. There
was no criticism whatsoever of the role of the Stalinist
bureaucracy. There was a white-washing of the role of the Yugoslavs
at U.N.O. Whilst correctly supporting the struggle of the North
there was not a syllable on the Stalinist set-up.

In the League of Youth [Labour Party youth wing], where there
are the most favourable conditions for work, we see not a
Trotskyist concept of spreading our ideas and gaining support for
them, but the concept of controlling the whole L.O.Y.
organisationally. In its struggle in the L.O.Y., while correctly
fighting for democratic and organisational demands, it does so at
the expense of a political position. The whole approach in the
Labour Party is a Stalinist one of controlling machines, a
Socialist Fellowship, a Socialist Outlook, an entire League
of Youth, at the expense of political ideas and programme. However,
it has not the saving grace that side by side with organisational
appendages, the Stalinists simultaneously organise their own
powerful independent party and press.

This liquidationist policy becomes the mixing of banners, policy
and programme.

Lack of Internal Democracy

Without a proper sense of proportion and magnifying the dangers,
the conference was held under most disadvantageous conditions.
Delegates only, apart from the favoured few, were allowed to
attend. Individual members, on the grounds of security, were
refused the right to attend or even to know where the conference
was being held.

The document of the State Capitalists was refused publication
after the General Secretary had accepted it, on the grounds that
its author was expelled (ex-poste facto). This constituted a
provocation, which, of course, assisted the State Capitalists. They
were a tendency represented at the conference and should have had
the right to put forward a document to express their ideas even if
the author was outside the organisation.

The Liverpool branch document was not published on the grounds
that it was presented too late, although some of the ideas were
incorporated in the last minute document, without
acknowledgement.

The “amended” major document was, in fact, an
entirely new document. By adding new ideas in an amalgam with the
old, it could only succeed in disorientating and confusing the
members. The leadership presented an entirely new document while at
the same time claiming that they had only amended the old document.
This is Zinovievist trickery.

At the conference the political discussion and voting took place
in an atmosphere of disciplinary threats. On the resolution on
reformism the delegates were told that anyone voting against its
implementation would be expelled, notwithstanding the fact that
some delegates disagreed with the document. In all Bolshevik
organisations members have the right to vote against documents,
although a majority decision determines policy, automatically. The
resolution on implementation was put in order to force the minority
to vote for a resolution to which they were opposed, on threat of
expulsion. This ultimatistic attitude has more in common with
Stalinist monolithism than Bolshevism.

They did not take the opportunity to allow the ventilation of
the ideas of the State Capitalists by having a full discussion at
the conference, despite the fact that growing numbers of the
members were becoming sympathetic to state capitalism as a reaction
to the semi-Stalinist line of the leadership.

Arbitrarily, and bureaucratically, the leadership dissolved and
amalgamated branches, without taking into account the needs of the
party, but only the needs of the clique. For example, the General
Secretary went down to the Kilburn branch and declared the branch
dissolved in order to “separate the branch from
‘malign’ influences”. This was not ratified by
the Executive Committee (E.C.) until a week later.

In Liverpool, there was a deliberate attempt to split the branch
in two for the purposes of dividing the “Deane family”
from the rest of the comrades in Liverpool.

Branches were deliberately isolated from one another in order to
facilitate control from the centre. There was no knowledge of what
was taking place in the organisation as a whole, correspondence
between branches was restricted and the statements which came
through the E.C. had the specific purpose of rubber-stamping E.C.
actions. Branches and individuals who disagreed were threatened
with expulsion or attacked viciously as anti-party comrades.

As a consequence of this regime, political discontent was bound
to reflect itself both in the infraction of discipline and dropping
away of members.

The only reply to the infraction of discipline was instantaneous
expulsion (Percy Downey in Birmingham). The decision to expel was
taken to the branches for endorsement. Those who voted against the
E.C.’s action on the grounds that a full discussion was
necessary and that these violations were a result of the lack of
political discussion and the lack of democracy inside the
organisation, were themselves instantly expelled (Birmingham, West
London). Thus, they insisted upon the monolithic principle of
unanimity.

Leading opposition comrades such as J.D. [Jimmy Deane] and S.L.
[Sam Levy] who were members of the National Committee were expelled
on flimsy pretexts or on technical infractions of discipline.

By restricting the rights of members, by utilising technical
points, by the dictatorial attitude of the leadership and the
general intimidation of members, the group has shrunk. Due to the
number of members resigning or the expulsions, it has been reduced
to a shambles. In the provinces it has become a mere skeleton. In
London members are losing confidence in such a leadership. These
have been large losses.

Only the younger and inexperienced comrades and the hardened
elements of the clique remain. The fact of an increasing number of
members leaving the group, plus the fact of the expulsion of
leading comrades, one a member of the National Committee and the
only opposition representative on this important body, shows that
it is both impossible and at the same time ceases to have any
meaning, to fight for an alternative leadership in such a
caricature of a Bolshevik organisation.

An Appeal

Comrades, these issues which we raise are not light ones. They
are fundamental questions, which affect the fate of Trotskyism,
nationally and internationally. We have not come lightly to the
decision to break from this ideologically and organisationally
disintegrating tendency. If the precious heritage of ideas left by
Trotsky is to be preserved, expanded and developed it is necessary
to break with those who trail in the wake of Stalinism. Today,
groupings of the Fourth International, owing to various historical
factors are small and weak. All the more necessary then, that the
fundamental principles of Trotskyism should be retained intact.
Today, the main task is one of ideological preparation for the
development of a mass organisation at a later stage. On a programme
of neo-Stalinism only disaster can be prepared. Only the training
of developed revolutionary cadres can prepare the way for the
future.

With the world situation and the conditions existing as they
are, it is impossible to foresee the development of the mass
Trotskyist movement in Britain very quickly. This will require
years of patient work.

At this stage, the main activity of the group will have to lie
inside the Labour movement and the mass organisations of the
working class, as an entrist group. A left wing will inevitably
develop in the Labour Party in the coming years. But the foolish
endeavour to create a left wing out of nothing and declare that the
left wing is already here has only demonstrated the impotence of
the Healyites except in their own imaginings. In order to prepare
for the left wing it is necessary now for serious and sober
criticism of all tendencies in the Labour Party to be conducted in
the press and in the Labour Party. At the same time a relentless
exposure of Stalinism as well as of imperialism must be
consistently carried on, in order to avert the possibility of
sections in the Labour Party going over in despair to
Stalinism.

For the conduct of the work scrupulous democracy and full
freedom of discussion within the organisation must be maintained.
Without this it will not be possible for a revolutionary grouping
to be created and survive in the difficult period that lies
ahead.

For all these reasons we appeal to all sincere comrades in the
movement to join us in this task. Only in this way, will a
fighting, living movement be created. Patient day to day work
inside the Labour movement will achieve results if it is conducted
on a correct basis. The years that lie ahead can be fruitful ones.
The tasks are difficult, but the opportunities from a long term
point of view [are] unbounded. Forward to the building of the
revolutionary tendency in Britain.